Judge refuses to block new DHS policy limiting Congress members’ access to ICE facilities

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge immigration detention facilities.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., concluded that the Department of Homeland Security didn’t violate an earlier court order when it reimposed a seven-day notice requirement for congressional oversight visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.

Cobb said she wasn’t ruling on whether the new policy passes legal muster. Rather, she said, plaintiffs’ attorneys representing several Democratic members of Congress used the wrong “procedural vehicle” to challenge it. The judge also concluded that the Jan. 8 policy is a new agency action that isn’t subject to her prior order in the plaintiffs’ favor.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers asked Cobb to intervene after three Democratic members of Congress from Minnesota were blocked from visiting an ICE facility near Minneapolis earlier this month — three days after an ICE officer shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Last month, Cobb temporarily blocked an administration oversight visit policy. She ruled Dec. 17 that it is likely illegal for ICE to demand a week’s notice from members of Congress seeking to visit and observe conditions in ICE facilities.

A day after Good’s death, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem secretly signed a new memorandum reinstating another seven-day notice requirement. Plaintiffs’ lawyers said DHS didn’t disclose the latest policy until after U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig initially were turned away from an ICE facility in the Minneapolis federal building.

On Monday, Cobb ruled that the new policy is similar but different than the one announced in June 2025.

“The Court emphasizes that it denies Plaintiffs’ motion only because it is not the proper avenue to challenge Defendants’ January 8, 2026 memorandum and the policy stated therein, rather than based on any kind of finding that the policy is lawful,” she wrote.

Twelve other Democratic members of Congress sued in Washington to challenge ICE’s amended visitor policies after they were denied entry to detention facilities. Their lawsuit accused Republican President Donald Trump’s administration of obstructing congressional oversight of the centers during its nationwide surge in immigration enforcement operations.

A law bars DHS from using appropriated general funds to prevent members of Congress from entering DHS facilities for oversight purposes. Plaintiffs’ attorneys from the Democracy Forward Foundation said the administration hasn’t shown that none of those funds are being used to implement the latest notice policy.

“Appropriations are not a game. They are a law,” plaintiffs’ attorney Christine Coogle said during a hearing Wednesday.

Justice Department attorney Amber Richer said the Jan. 8 policy signed by Noem is distinct from the policies that Cobb suspended last month.

“This is really a challenge to a new policy,” Richer said.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys said the matter is urgent because members of Congress are negotiating funding for DHS and ICE for the next fiscal year with DHS’s annual appropriations due to expire Jan. 30.

“This is a critical moment for oversight, and members of Congress must be able to conduct oversight at ICE detention facilities, without notice, to obtain urgent and essential information for ongoing funding negotiations,” the lawyers wrote.

Government attorneys have said it’s merely speculative for the legislators to be concerned that conditions in ICE facilities change over the course of a week. But the judge rejected those arguments last month.

“The changing conditions within ICE facilities means that it is likely impossible for a Member of Congress to reconstruct the conditions at a facility on the day that they initially sought to enter,” wrote Cobb, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.